a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Pre-Lockout Leftover Odds and Ends

One. Mark your calendars: Russia’s first game in the European Basketball Championships is against Ukraine! AK vs. Fes! A mere, trifley 61 days away!

Two. The Jazz brass might need to start eating at Chinese restaurants more. Randy Rigby shared this story the day after the draft lottery:

Chris Baum, my senior vice president of broadcasting…last evening was taking his family to a Chinese restaurant, and he said he opened his fortune cookie literally ten minutes before the lottery began…and the fortune said, “Your lucky number is 3.” So it started right there.

On the night of the actual draft, the Jazz’s PR guy, Jon Rinehart, tweeted this:

Three. Found it interesting/cool that Karl Malone was there with the Jazz’s front office when the Jazz made their pick in ’89. Just shows how much things have changed over the years. Also, as always Phil Johnson’s mustache deserves a “wow!”

Four. CJ wants to start:

I definitely am working this summer and preparing myself to be able to come into camp and be the starting shooting guard on our team. …

Sometimes it’s harder to be consistent off the bench because the game is always so different for you, and the role that I was put in a lot of times, where until Gordon really started to play more I was really the only scorer in that second group, and it was hard to really do a lot of things when you step on the floor and the first thing that the defensive unit says is, that’s where the ball is going. …

I trusted the guys I was on the floor with, but it was just a role I was assigned to. Me and Coach Sloan had a conversation; my teammates believed in the things I could do. And they got the ball to me, it was just a little hard to make plays. I still had to make better plays, I still had to make plays of getting guys shots to help my shots get easier…but that’s definitely something I had to adjust to in the beginning. (KFAN)

Five. If you thought that the Jazz would become a more downtown-friendly team under the Ty Corbin regime, think again:

I’m not in love with the three-point shot. I like to play inside-out, and if we try and go to the basket and come out and hit three-point shots, it’s not as bad. But I don’t want to come down and take a lot of three-point shots early in the clock or early in transition. (KZNS)

Six. Greg Miller has been talking to John Stockton:

I’ve called on Stockton several times and just said, “John, give me your advice. What do you think on this?” And he’s always been quick to do that and very helpful and amazingly insightful. I have enormous respect for John not just as a player but as a person, and I’m so thankful that he’s there to help me on the side. (KFAN)

Compare this to when he was asked a few weeks ago if he’s considered contacting Karl to work with the players:

Seven. Why the Jazz’s coaching staff was the only one in the league that sat in the back of the plane, rather than the front (as told by Greg):

Jerry liked to keep an eye on things, and the way it was conveyed to me is that, I don’t know if it was with the NBA, but at some point in Jerry’s career, some guys got into it and he couldn’t see it. He wasn’t in a position to see it and stop it, and so he wanted to make sure that that never happened on his watch. (KFAN)